Old Ugly-Face by Talbot Mundy

Elsa and Nancy made themselves more comfortable in the smoke-smeared monastery guest room than Andrew had done three nights earlier. Andrew, confusing luxury with comfort, usually dispensed with both when alone, although he wasn't, like Tom Grayne, a Spartan about it; for his own purposes, they merely weren't worth worrying about. Elsa, on the other hand, intuitively knew which little luxuries make discomfort bearable; and Nancy was an old, old hand at creating comfort where there was none. So the car had disgorged some inconsiderable trifles, and the gloomy room became a swept and habitable refuge.

The bearded old chauffeur, shawled in double blankets, sat on a mat outside the door, protecting his lunatic charges against only God could guess what consequences of their madness. He even stood off the monks who brought food--himself carried in the food--himself tasted it first in Nancy's presence to make sure the monks hadn't doped it with magical drugs--himself carried out the dishes and set them at a distance down the corridor where the kitchen crew might recover them without bringing their devilish persons too near. He had eaten his own dry corn and peas porridge. No monkish muck for him. He had brought his old army water bottle, filled in Darjeeling at a hydrant on which no priestly shadow had ever cast its curse. By the light of a Japanese lantern he sat reading a Life of Lenin--mistranslated from the French, with footnotes and interpolated comments by a babu who had been to Moscow. Revolution snorted through the old man's nostrils as he read.